Whether you treat your battlefields getaway as a self-drive exploration (armed with maps and brochures available from the tourism association and information offices in the region), or use the services of a specialist guide, your stay on the Battlefields Route will bring an exciting new dimension to your African experience:

Early Zulu Battles & historical sites
Voortrekker Zulu wars
Rebellion of Langalibalele 1873
Anglo Zulu War 1879
Transvaal War of Independance 1880-1881
South Africa/ Anglo-Boer War 1889-1902
Bhambatha Rebellion 1906


EARLY ZULU CONFLICTS

Early in the 19th century King Shaka transformed a tiny tribe into a proud and powerful nation. This nation building involved a continuing series of skirmishes and battles, but by the mid-1820s the Zulus had emerged as the most powerful and influential nation in southern Africa.

The legend of Shaka still inspires pride among the Zulu people. During a twelve-year reign he built up and led a powerful army, while setting new standards and cultural traditions for his people. Historians acknowledge his military leadership and his prowess at developing new weapons (significantly the short stabbing spear) and battlefield strategy (particularly izimpondo zenkomo, the horns-of-the-bull encircling tactic). Despite understandably subjective Victorian criticism, contemporary accounts from shipwrecked sailors in the 18th century describe the Zulus with whom they came into contact as cheerful, prosperous and law-abiding people.

VOORTREKKER-ZULU CONFLICT

The introduction of British rule in the Cape Colony in 1806 led to dissatisfaction among the fiercely independent Afrikaners, resulting in an exodus of Voortrekkers to the hinterland, where they aspired to govern themselves and maintain their cultural identity and language.

After crossing the Drakensberg mountains and entering Natal, the trekkers came into conflict with some of the resident Zulu tribes, and disputes arose over land ownership. A group of trekkers under the leadership of Piet Retief arrived in Natal in 1838, and during negotiations with Zulu king Dingane in the royal capital at Mgungundlovu, the Voortrekker leader and 101 of his men were killed. This led to open hostilities – with other groups of Voortrekkers being attacked and killed, and a commando dispatched from Port Natal was ambushed at Italeni.

The Voortrekkers mobilised to avenge the attacks making a vow that if God should grant them victory over the Zulus, they would build a church in thanksgiving and commemorate the event annually. On 16 December 1838, on the banks of the Ncome River (meaning praiseworthy) 460 Voortrekkers defeated a strong Zulu army at the Battle of Blood River/ Ncome.

THE REBELLION OF LANGALIBALELE 1873

Langalibalele (his name means the sun is boiling hot) was chief of the amaHlubi, numbering some 9 400, who settled peacefully in the upper reaches of the Bushmans River, in the Drakensberg mountains near Giant’s Castle. Many of the men of the tribe worked in Griqualand West, and were given firearms in lieu of cash payment. The colonial government required these firearms to be registered; the amaHlubi refused, and were declared to be in open rebellion.

Colonial forces were mobilized to prevent Langalibalele and his people fleeing over the Bushman’s Pass into Lesotho. Difficulties in navigating the mountain terrain and the ill-defined passes led to the military under Major Anthony Durnford arriving at the head of Bushman’s Pass after many of the amaHlubi and their cattle had already reached the top. General confusion and unease within the pursuers led to indiscriminate shooting by both sides, and the having lost five men in the engagement, the government forces retreated. After subsequent pursuits by a considerable force of colonial and regular troops, Langalibalele surrended on 11 December 1873. He was sentenced to life imprisonment on Robben Island, but British Government intervention saw him released in 1875.

ANGLO-ZULU WAR 1879

The continuing strengthening of the independent Zulu nation by King Cetshwayo was perceived as a growing threat to the colonists of Natal, and in December 1878 the British government issued an ultimatum that was impossible for the Zulus to meet.

When the demands of the ultimatum were not met, three British columns under the command of Lieutenant-General Lord Chelmsford (who despite considerable experience in the field nonetheless made the fatal mistake of underestimating the fighting ability of the Zulus), crossed the Thukela and Buffalo Rivers and invaded Zululand.

At the battle of Isandlwana, on 22 January 1879, some 20 000 Zulus overran the 1700 strong invading force, killing more than 1300 officers and men. Survivors of the rout (including Victoria Cross recipients Lieutenants Melvill and Coghill, who valiantly attempted to save the Queen’s Colour) were forced to flee across the Buffalo River, at a place now known as Fugitive’s Drift. On the same day a Zulu force attacked Rorke’s Drift, a Swedish mission station used by the British army as a commissariat and hospital. Here the “heroic hundred” repelled a force of 4 000 Zulu warriors led by King Cetshwayo’s brother Dabulamazi for twelve hours. The British lost 17 men and won 11 Victoria Crosses, the most ever awarded to a regiment in a seperate military engagement. The war ended with the defeat of King Cetshwayo at the Battle of Ulundi in 4 July 1879.

During the Anglo-Zulu War the last hopes of a Napoleonic dynasty died when Prince Louis Napoleon, son of Napoleon II who was serving as an observer with the British forces, was killed
while on patrol.

TRANSVAAL WAR OF INDEPENDENCE 1880-1881

To the Boers watching from the heights it must have been an astonishing sight. Five companies of redcoats advancing parallel to one another, each in its column of fours, their white helmets and scarlet coats brilliant against the green of the plateau, and in their midst, as had always been the custom of British infantry going into action, the Colours unfurled – two large heavy standards nearly six feet square. (The Anglo-Boer Wars – Michael Barthorp).

When the peaceful attempts of the Zuid-Afrikaansche Republiek (Transvaal) failed to negotiate independence from the British through diplomacy, war was declared. British forces were marched from Durban to Newcastle, close to the Transvaal border, where they clashed with the Boers in a series of fierce encounters at Lang’s Nek Schuinshoogte and Majauba (Hill of Doves)

The armistice was signed in March 1881. The subsequent Pretoria Convention, signed in October the same year, was never wholly acceptable to the Boers and sowed the seeds of discontent that led to the Anglo-Boer War in 1899.

ANGLO-BOER WAR 1899-1902

With the discovery of gold in the Transvaal (Zuid-Afrikaansche Republiek) in 1886, the Boers, fearing an influx of uitlanders (foreigners), amended the voting act. The foreigners on the goldfields protested, and war between Britain and the ZAR (supported by the Orange
Free State) broke out on 11 October 1899.

The northern triangle of Natal, which bordered both Boer republics, was an especially vulnerable region. The Boers occupied Newcastle on 15 October 1899 and five days later the first major battle of the war took place at Talana, two kilometers outside Dundee.

Britain entered the war promising to give the “Boojers a lesson”, believing it would all be over by Christmas. But as Kipling was to point out, it was the comparatively small band of volunteers from the Zuid-Afrikaasche Republiek and Orange Free State that were to give Queen Victoria’s proud British army “no end of a lesson”.
The three-year conflict proved to be the longest, costliest, bloodiest and most humiliating war Britain had fought since the Napoleonic wars.

During the Anglo-Boer War: the Boers besieged the British army in Ladysmith for 118 days, an event that dominated world headlines: the combatants engaged at the Thukela Heights in the biggest battle fought by Britain in Africa until World War II; the Boers confounded British strategists by discarding conventional warfare and opting for guerrilla tactics, using relatively small, highly mobile mounted commando units.

The tapestry of the conflict is rich with the names of men who went to war in South Africa – Winston Churchill, Mohandas Gandhi, Jan Smuts, Robert Baden-Powell, Louis Botha, Deneys Reitz, Redvers Buller, Lord Kitchener, Lord Roberts, Piet Joubert and Christiaan de Wet; while battle honours reflect bloody conflicts and famous engagements: Talana, Elandslaagte, Seige of Ladysmith, the Armoured Train Incident, Colenso, Thukela Heights, Spionkop and Vaalkrans.

BHAMBATHA REBELLION 1906

The Bhambatha Rebellion, a defiance against colonial rule, is described by many as the beginning of the armed struggle by black South Africans.

Bhambatha, a chief of the Zondi tribe, led a protest against the imposition by the Colonial Government of a poll tax of one pound on all male residents over the age of 18. After four policemen were killed at Ambush Rock, colonial forces were called in. By then many of the tribal communities in the colony were in open rebellion against the poll tax, and Bhambatha had moved to the densely forested Nkandla area, from where he operated.

Despite artillery shelling of the forest and sweeping searches by the colonial troops, the rebels remained secure. However, on 9 June 1906, Col Duncan McKenzie, commander of the colonial forces, received word that Bhambatha and his men were entering the Nkandla forest via the Mome Gorge. The next day the rebels were engaged, with 575 killed to the loss of three of the colonial force.

Officially, Bhambatha’s body was located on the banks of the Mome stream, decapitated and the head taken to Nkandla for identification, after which it was returned to the forest and buried with the body. However, elders of the Zondi community maintain that Bhambatha escaped the troopers and fled to Mozambique. The battle in the Mome Gorge broke the back of the rebellion, and although several influential amakhosi led sporadic displays of resistance, they were unable to match the firepower of the colonial forces and by mid-July the rebellion had ended.